A Dervish in the Courtyard

Robert L. Fisher

2014

And that’s what I saw — a dervish spinning in the courtyard at the Aga Khan Museum and Islamic Center, which opened to the public on Thursday, September 18th, a beautiful addition to the architecture and cultural life of the Greater Toronto Area. The Aga Khan, the spiritual and temporal leader of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam, bestowed this gift on Toronto because, amongother reasons, there are approximately thirty to forty million people within a one-hour flight from our city. In addition, Toronto has a well-deserved reputation for prizing cultural diversity, and no less than thirty thousand of Canada’s one hundred thousand Ismailis live here.

The Aga Khan has been a tireless promoter of eliminating poverty in Africa and Asia and of providing education for the young, both male and female. He has also established a number of museumsand Islamic centers in major cities around the world with the goal of educating the public about the high artistic achievements of Islamic civilization and eliminating many negative stereotypes that portray Moslems as dangerous fanatics and their culture as backward and inferiorto Western civilization.

The museum’s holdings of about one thousand items, of which about one-third are displayed everythree months or so, originally comprised an exhibition that traveled among the great museums ofEurope. In fact, I first saw this exhibition in 2008 at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. I was astonished at the time to see a model of the then-future Toronto museum and Islamic center, scheduled

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to open, according the sign, in 2011. Now in 2014 it is a reality that must surpass the vision of itscreators.

In the Shia branch of Islam an imam is a temporal leader as well as a spiritual leader, as can be seen most prominently in Iran. The Aga Khan is for some Ismailis Allah’s physical manifestationon Earth, analogous to the two natures of Jesus. For others he is considered infallible in matters of doctrine, like the Catholic pope. These aspects of the Aga Khan were de-emphasized in the twentiethcentury.

The present Aga Khan’s connection to Canada dates back to 1972 with the expulsion of Ismailis and others of South Asian descent from Idi Amin’s notorious regime in Uganda. The Aga Khan prevailed upon his friend Pierre Trudeau to allow thousands of Ismaili refugees to settle in Canada. Wherever Ismailis have found themselves in their very wide diaspora, they have generally prospered, since one of their traditional values is education. The Aga Khan, himself, has been a generous philanthropist and tireless campaigner for religious tolerance andsecular pluralism, including equality for women.

The Aga Khan Museum is the only museum in NorthAmerica devoted to Islamic art, a fact that may well surprise many since there have been for a longtime museums specializing in, for example, East Asian art, such as the one in San Francisco, established in 1966. Nevertheless, though not exclusively devoted to Islamic art, many museums inNorth America have large, broad Islamic art collections, especially the newly renovated, enormous galleries at the Metropolitan Museum in

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New York (http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/new-installations/new-galleries-for-the-art-of-the-arab-lands-turkey-iran-central-asia-and-later-south-asia), and the large collection of decorativearts at the Royal Ontario Museum, some of whose rare textiles are presently on loan to the Aga KhanMuseum (the ROM will have its own textile exhibit in 2015: https://www.rom.on.ca/en/exhibitions-galleries/exhibitions/cairo-under-wraps-early-islamic-textiles).

At the advance opening of the Museum for the benefit of the media, Mr. Kim, the curator, and other scholars questioned the validity of the term “Islamic art”, since from the Iberian Peninsula to India and the borders of China, each region responded to Arab culture and religion in an individual manner, leading to a wide variety of styles. This is true, but the term is still very useful because the artistic traditions of all theseregions share a common core values and are recognizably closely related. The convenience of the term, I believe outweighs the emphasis on the differences, just as Oriental art is a useful term to describe the responses of Korea, Japan and Vietnam to Chinese art and civilization: their obvious commonalities unite them and make them distinct from the art of other civilizations, such as those of India and the West.

The Museum highlights these influences in its collection. A tenth-century carved marble capital from Andalusia, Spain, clearly shows the influence of Greek architecture via Rome. The carving is veryfine and delicate, reminiscent of the intricate carving on ancient Greek Corinthian capitals, yet

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lace-like and geometrically abstract, in contrast to the Greek carving which is recognizablyfloral.

An early sixteen-century porcelain ablution basin from Jingdezhen, China is an excellent

example of Chinese influence. Jingdezhen, in the southeast province of Jiangxi, has beenfor centuries a renowned center for the production of the highest quality porcelain. Even yourhumble blue-and-white ware rice bowlfrom the Chinese

supermarket may well have been produced there.

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Jingdezhen porcelain had already reached Europe in the 14th century.

Further Chinese influence can be detected in new styles of painting. Illustrations to the great Persian verse epic, The Shahnameh (Book of Kings) are oriented vertically, as in books, not scrolls, and the figures in the painting are shown to give the impression of foreground and background. But perhaps the most striking new characteristics are

the very bright colors and the depiction of mountainous, rocky landscapes of Chinese paintings with their gnarled trees and small patch of blue sky.

In the Aga Khan Museum collection some ofthese characteristics areexemplified by another illustration from The Shahnameh, entitled The Court of the Keyomars, ca. 1522, from Tabriz, Iran. Here again are the vibrant colors, including gold, the mountains and trees, but also with a typical Chinese feature: the decoration of the painting with calligraphy.It has been typical of Chinese paintings to be valued as much for their

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calligraphy as for the images depicted on the paper. In the painting of Guo Xi (eleventh century)there are the same, almost fantastical mountains, and at the top of the painting a poem in beautiful calligraphy.

Calligraphy is the most highly valued art in Islamic civilization and serves not only as art in its own right, but decorates every other art form —architecture, tiles, ceramics, paintings and textiles, in fact, even common objects in everyday use. This value it shares with Chinese calligraphy,although Arabic was one of the last major languages

to be reduced to writing (7th century AD), and Chinese one ofthe first (about 1200 BC).Arabic calligraphy owes its

value to the Islamic religion in at least two ways: first, the centrality of the Koran andits accurate representation in writing shaped the Arabic writing system; and second, Islam, adopting a principle of Judaism, discouraged figures ofhumans, animals and even landscapes. We all remember Charlton Heston (played by

Moses) descending the mountain with the tablets of the Ten Commandments only to find Edward G. Robinson (played by Aaron, his older brother but without any family resemblance), engaged in leadingthe people in the worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32:1-5). This was especially galling because the third commandment decreed:

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Guo Xi

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:4-5).

In both Islam and Christianity, which also adopted the fear of idolatry from Judaism, this prohibition varied greatly with time and place. Forexample in the early Church and in the Byzantine period (8th century), and finally in the Protestant Reformation (16th century), images were sometimes valued (icons, for example), other times iconoclasmled to the destruction of statues and paintings. Even in the Bible, King Hezekiah (II Kings 18 – 20)destroyed images, but his successor Manasseh restored them (II Kings 21:3). God even instructed Moses to portray the cherubim on some of Israel’s most sacred objects (as statues on the Ark of the Covenant and as embroidery on the tent walls of theTabernacle) (Exodus 25: 18 – 22; 26:1, 26:31), and to make the bronze serpent on a pole, the Nehushtan, as a talisman against snake-bite (Numbers 21:4 – 9).

No better illustration of the inconsistency in the compliance with the Third Commandment can be found than the stark contrast between a typical Baroque church and a Calvinist church:

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Holy Trinity Church, Krakow, Poland

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Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde, Interior of St Bavo’sChurch, Haarlem, Holland (late 17th century)

The Kufic style of Arabic calligraphy is an early script characterized by its angularity and thick lines. It is named after a town in Iraq. In fact, it appears in the center of the modern Iraqi flag:

And around the borders of the Iranian flag:

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In both cases the Kufic inscriptions read Allahu akbar, God is great.

This folio page from a Koran (8th-9th century, Sura 48; not in the Aga Khan Museum collection) shows the squarish shape of the letters and their thickness:

This is a remarkable Kufic rendering of the name Mohammad within a square, the letters drawn as puregeometric abstractions:

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By the tenth century the cursive style had matured and become the basis for modern printed Arabic and was called the Naskh style:

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The basmalla, from Arabic bismillah “In the name of God”, recited at the beginning of almost every sura,or chapter, of the Koran, became a favorite phrase for calligraphers to try out their inventiveness on, for example, as a pear:

As a dove:

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And this magnificent example in the Thuluth style (one of the six classical scripts in Arabic calligraphy, along with the Naskh style):

During those times and in thoseregions where figurative painting was allowed, such as at the Persian court and among the Mughals of northern India (16th to 19th centuries), illustrated books were made for the sovereign, often depicting life at court and hunts.

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Several of these wonderful paintings are exhibited in Museum, but under rather dim light, to preserve them from further fading.

Rostam Pursues the Onager Div (16th century) illustrates an episode in the Shahnameh in which the hero attempts to capture a wild ass (onager) that has been disturbing the countryside. When, as in this picture, he is about to slip his lariat over the onager it vanishes in a puff of smoke, forit is in reality the demon (div) Akvan.

Resting Lion (18th century) is a Persian painting with a confident and graceful sense of line.

The Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27), and his father before him, encouraged portraiture. Here is portrayed an Ottoman official who was visiting the court in India (circa 1610):

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In regard to the building that houses all this magnificent art, a balance has to be struck between the architecture of the museum and its collection in such a way that the building does notoverwhelm or conflict with the exhibitions. One hasonly to think of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, a fantastical and stunning building whose exterior, in my opinion, dwarfs the paintings inside. All that exciting and daring flow of silverwings and fairytale shapes leaves the viewer speechless. There is simply nothing else like it, from no matter what angle one views it. Its placement on the waterfront adds to its spectacularimpression.

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I think it would take a collection as strong as that of the Prado to compete with this architecture.

The Aga Khan Museum, again a unique building for Toronto, finds a balance. It does not overwhelmthe exhibition, yet it must be said that the beautyand grace of the building come close to competing with the collection, which, despite being a connoisseur’s collection, is relatively small in comparison to the building. One imbalance is probably unavoidable: the brilliant white of the exterior contrasts with the dim lighting inside that is necessary to protect the paintings. Otherwise, the building has clean modern lines and something of traditional Islamic

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architecture or its spirit. The Arabs have always been desert dwellers, and the two inescapable factsof their life experience are an overpowering sun ina blue sky, and the preciousness, and therefore, anappreciation of water. The whiteness of the building is dazzling on a sunny day, and reminds meof how bright the desert sands must be. And alongside the Museum is a reflecting pool, that on the sunny day I visited it was like blue glass, that I felt I could walk across to the entrance. This is the same love of water that I saw this lastsummer at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. The soundof water flowing and trickling, the nourishment it brought to gardens were exactly what you would expect of people living in an arid land.

There is a courtyard inside the building, so that the glass on all four sides rises up to the second storey. The glass, starting from about eight

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feet from the floor, is etched with a subtle geometric design that casts its pattern on other parts of the building as the sun moves across the sky.

Toronto should be grateful to the Aga Khan for this Museum and Islamic Center whose buildings and

grounds relieve the functional, unimaginative dullness of its neighborhood of low- and medium-rise office buildings and minimal landscaping. In the same Don Mills

neighborhood, practically just across the street to the north, is what was originally the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Center, built in 1963 by Raymond Murayama, but since 2003 has been the Noor Cultural

Center, another institution devoted to Islamic learning and culture. The building, constructed according to traditional Japanese culture, was almost hidden, like a Japanese temple. This is in sharp contrast to the Aga Khan Museum and Islamic Center, which are on high ground and a prominent sight to the many thousands who daily commute on the Don Valley Parkway.

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